# mail(1)

## NAME

         mail - send and receive electronic mail

## SYNOPSIS

         mail [-dpqrv] [-f file] [user]

## OPTIONS

         -d   Force use of the shell variable MAILER

         -f   Use file instead of /usr/spool/mail/user as mailbox

         -p   Print all mail and then exit

         -q   Quit program if SIGINT received

         -r   Reverse print order, i.e., print oldest first

         -v   Verbose mode

## EXAMPLES

         mail ast            # Send a message to ast

         mail                # Read your mail

## DESCRIPTION

         Mail is an extremely simple electronic mail program.  It can be  used  to
         send  or  receive  email  on  a  single  MINIX  system,  in which case it
         functions as user agent and local delivery agent. If the flag  MAILER  is
         defined  in  mail.c,  it can also call a transport agent to handle remote
         mail as well.  No such agent is supplied with MINIX.

         When  called  by  user  with  no  arguments,  it  examines  the   mailbox
         /usr/spool/mail/user,  prints one message (depending on the -r flag), and
         waits for one of the following commands:

            <newline>   Go to the next message
            -           Print the previous message
            !command    Fork off a shell and execute command
            CTRL-D      Update the mailbox and quit (same as q)
            d           Delete the current message and go to the next one
            q           Update the mailbox and quit (same as CTRL-D)
            p           Print the current message again
            s [file]    Save message in the named file
            x           Exit without updating the mailbox

         To send mail, the program is called with the name of the recipient as  an
         argument.   The  mail  is sent, along with a postmark line containing the
         date.  For local delivery, a  file  named  after  the  recipient  in  the
         directory /usr/spool/mail must be writable.

         If the directory /usr/spool/mail does not exist then the mail  is  dumped
         on  the console, so that system programs have a way to notify a user on a
         system that does not have a mail spool.